


Fantasia

by destroythemeek



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: 5 Times, Character Study, Disney Movies, Gen, M/M, No Call Down the Hawk Spoilers, Ronan Lynch Has Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 09:20:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29008188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/destroythemeek/pseuds/destroythemeek
Summary: Five times Ronan Lynch's life was a Disney movie.
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 6
Kudos: 61





	Fantasia

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to likeadeuce for the beta and encouragement, and for dragging me into this fandom.

**I**

When Niall Lynch came home from his latest trip, Ronan was watching _The Little Mermaid_. He’d already watched it twice that day, but it was his favorite, and his mom never made him put on something else, no matter how much Declan complained. (Matthew never complained, mostly because he was a baby and liked to sleep through movie time. It was one of the many reasons that Matthew was Ronan’s favorite brother.)

Ronan ran to greet his father, dropping the toy car he’d been launching over throw pillows. On the TV screen, Ariel lay crying in the ruined remains of her grotto. Niall scooped Ronan up and planted a kiss on his cheek.

“Daddy, can I go to a sleepover at Tommy’s house?” Ronan asked, once Niall had set him down again. “Mom says no.” 

“Your mother is right.”

“But Declan is at a sleepover _right now_ ,” Ronan protested.

Niall sat down on the couch and motioned for Ronan to climb into his lap. “What’s so great about Tommy’s house, eh? What can you find there that you can’t find at the Barns? 

“Tommy has a Nintendo 64!”

“Well, then, we’ll go to the toy store right now and buy a Nintendo 64. Declan’s been asking about that, too, hasn’t he?”

Ronan pouted and huffed hot air out of his nose. He wasn’t a baby like Matthew, and he wasn’t going to cry. But his dad didn’t _understand_. He didn’t need an N64. He had a whole basement full of toys. He had a Tamagatchi and action figures of every Power Ranger and a million Beanie Babies and a Cool-Shavin’ Ken. He had a Sega and a Game Boy. What he didn’t have was someone to play them _with_ , other than stupid Declan, who never wanted to play with him anyway. 

Sometimes his mom would take him to Tommy’s house, or Scott’s, or Brian’s, but only for a little while. Nobody was allowed to come to the Barns, and Ronan wasn’t allowed to stay anywhere else for very long. He went to pre-school and church, and sometimes to the store, and most days that was it.

“Someday,” Niall said, smoothing back Ronan’s long, tangled curls, “you’ll understand how lucky you are to be in this house. This is a magical place, Ronan. If I could be here all the time, I would.”

Ronan looked down at his untied shoelaces, feeling guilty. His dad wasn’t King Triton, destroying Ronan’s little grotto of hopes. He was Niall Lynch, and he’d just come home after weeks away. It wasn’t right to want to leave when his dad was here. That was something Declan would do.

Niall paused the movie, freezing the screen on Ariel’s wide eyes. “Now come on, sonny. Let’s get in the BMW. If you’re quiet, I’ll tell you a story while we drive.”

**II**

Ronan tore off his Aglionby sweater the second he got home. It made him itch. Everything about Aglionby made him itch – the drafty old buildings and the too-perfect grass and the ancient teachers who obviously hated all of the students but hated Ronan most of all. And then there were his _classmates_. Suck-ups and assholes and asshole suck-ups. Kids with too much money who only used it in the most boring ways. Kids with not enough money who spent all their time with their noses in books. And…Gansey.

Ronan didn’t know how to categorize Gansey.

“Ronan, sweetheart? Is that you?” Aurora’s voice called from upstairs. 

Ronan grabbed a stick of string cheese from the fridge and bit down on it like it was a carrot. “Yeah,” he called back, around a mouthful of cheese.

“Come up here. Tell me about your day.”

Ronan did not want to tell his mother about his day. He never wanted to tell her about his day, because the Venn diagram of interesting things that happened to him and things he wanted to tell his mother about was two circles on opposite sides of the fucking planet. But today he _especially_ didn’t want to talk about, because today Richard Motherfucking Campbell Gansey the Third had asked him if he was going to the Homecoming dance. And Ronan, for some unfathomable reason, had not immediately said no, despite the fact that he had zero interest in school spirit shit even when it _didn’t_ involve shoving himself into a tuxedo and pretending to be interested in girls.

In her room, Aurora Lynch was sitting in an antique chair, knitting a sweater and watching _Cinderella_ on the TV that sat across from the bed she shared with Niall. Ronan knew that his mother preferred the Rodgers and Hammerstein version, but today it was the 1950 Disney classic. No matter the form, Aurora could never resist a fairy tale.

“Hi Mom,” Ronan said.

Aurora smiled. “How is my handsome boy?”

“Fine,” Ronan said. He hated that his mother called him handsome. Ronan didn’t _want_ to be handsome. He wanted to be someone no one wanted to fuck with.

_Gansey_ was the handsome one.

Aurora nodded. She was used to Ronan’s short answers. Music swelled on the TV, and she started to sing along. “A dream is a wish your heart makes, when you’re fast asleep…”

Ronan snorted. “That is the biggest piece of bullshit I’ve ever heard.”

Aurora paused the movie and studied Ronan appraisingly. “How can you say that, when your heart has made such wonderful things?”

“It’s not my heart. It’s my _brain_. And it’s made terrible things, too.” Terrible things that attacked him in the night with beaks and talons. Terrible things that set his bed on fire. Terrible things that left him shaking with fear even after he’d destroyed them. They weren’t _wishes_.

“Yes. But your heart will always win,” Aurora said. Before Ronan could object, she pointed at the bed. “Will you sit and watch with me?”

Ronan knew he should say yes. That was what made him an asshole – he knew what the right thing was, but he always ran in the other direction. And today that other direction would take him away from a movie that would only make him think about dances, and handsome princes, and majestic pumpkin-orange vehicles, and all the things he wanted and didn’t want and didn’t want to want.

“I have to call Gansey,” he said, and looked away before he could see his mother’s face fall. 

There was no way he was going to fucking Homecoming.

**III**

Ronan sat on Gansey’s bed in Monmouth Manufacturing next to Noah, an array of chip bags and candy wrappers and tiny bottles of flavored liqueurs strewn around them, creating a brightly-colored nest of plastic detritus. Gansey was out of town for the weekend, fulfilling the obligations that came with being a Gansey, and Ronan and Noah were having a sleepover. Niall Lynch no longer had any say in the matter, because Niall Lynch was dead.

Ronan was having a good fucking time, and Noah must have been, too, because Ronan was sure (well, pretty sure) that he hadn’t just finished an entire bag of Doritos by himself. They’d already watched _Superbad_ and _Transformers_ on the TV they’d propped up on a pile of plastic storage bins, and now they were getting nostalgic with _The Lion King_.

“This is the thing I’ve never understood,” Ronan said, as Scar made his case to the hyenas. He threw back a shot of peach schnapps, reveling in the sickly sweet burn. “Who would go to this much trouble just for power? He’s already the king’s brother. How much more does he fucking need?”

Next to him, Noah stiffened. “Some people are never satisfied.” His voice was precise, carefully even.

“And willing to kill to get there?”

“You’d be surprised,” Noah mumbled.

“Hmm.” Ronan thought he should follow up on that, and on the weird way that Noah was holding himself, small and tight like a coiled spring, but the idea slid off his mind before he could grasp it, and then the moment was gone.

They sang along to “Just Can’t Wait to be King,” Noah offering up an impressively awful British accent as Zazu while Ronan shouted his way through Simba’s part, and they collapsed onto the bed in fits of giggles, chocolate and cheese dust smearing their clothes and skin. Gansey was not going to be happy about the state of his bed, but Gansey could fuck off. Ronan was having fun.

And then there was a stampede, and Simba stood alone in a dusty canyon, staring down at his father’s lifeless form.

Ronan had thought he could handle it. It was just a motherfucking cartoon. He bit down onto his leather bands, squeezing his eyes closed and pulling until his wrists ached, but the tears still came.

Noah’s arms snaked around Ronan’s shoulders and Ronan curled in on himself, pressing his face against Noah’s t-shirt and the cool solidity of his chest beneath it. Noah didn’t say anything. He wasn’t Gansey; he wasn’t going to try to fix something that couldn’t be fixed. 

When Ronan stopped shaking from sobs and instead began to shiver from the chill of Noah’s ice-cold arms, he finally pulled away. “Let’s try watching something else,” he said, and Noah quietly obliged.

**IV**

Ronan’s brain was on fire. When he closed his eyes he couldn’t sleep, couldn’t dream – he only saw Declan’s face, twisted ugly with pain and rage as Ronan’s fist connected. Ronan needed to quiet his mind. He needed a drink. He needed church.

St. Agnes never closed its doors. It was one of the things Ronan liked best about the place, more rare and precious than the sweeping ceilings and ritual recitations. The priests and nuns and staff cared more about offering sleep and sanctuary to those in need than keeping out drunken hooligans, and tonight Ronan was both.

Ronan crossed himself with fingers dipped in holy water and knelt by the offering candles. He lit two, one for each of his parents, his hand shaking from intoxication and anger and grief. He prayed, and stuffed a few crumpled bills into the offering slot. Then he stretched his long body across a hard, narrow pew and began to dream.

In the dream there was a forest. That was nothing new. Ronan often dreamt of forests, bright and clean and bursting with flora and fauna. A squirrel scampered by, and a bird flitted overhead. Everything was perfectly ordinary, graded on the curve of dreamspace reality.

Then a woman came into view, her long golden hair spiraling into perfect curls near her waist. She wore a black corset over a blouse and skirt of muted grey, and her smile was dazzling. Ronan recognized her once, and then twice, because he was looking at Sleeping Beauty, and he was also looking at his mother.

Aurora. Ronan’s mother had loved _Sleeping Beauty_ almost as much as she’d loved _Pygmalion_ , had loved the idea of a beautiful princess who shared her name and her kindness. Two Auroras, both devoted to men who they knew would slay dragons in their honor. 

In the dream, Aurora Lynch began to dance, and the squirrels and birds and rabbits danced with her, picking up discarded scraps of clothing and lifting them into a rough simulacrum of a prince. And then the prince materialized, and he was Niall Lynch, and he swept his wife into his arms and danced and danced and danced. _I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream…_

Ronan could only watch. Usually in his dream-forests he could move around, smell flowers, kick rocks into streams. This time, he was frozen behind a psychic barrier, forced to witness the scene as if it was really just a movie and he was sitting alone in a dark theater. 

Ronan would have watched his parents dance forever, but that wasn’t how movies worked, and it wasn’t how dreams worked either. Maleficent arrived, a predestined horror, and Aurora fell to the forest floor and into an unbreakable sleep. She was wearing a dress that was both ballgown and nightgown, royal finery mixed with the nondescript shift Ronan’s mother wore while the visiting nurses poked and prodded and checked her improbable vitals. 

Maleficent turned to look at Ronan, and her face was Niall’s face, and Declan’s face, and Ronan’s face – the same face three times with slight variation, all complicit in the curse that had befallen their beautiful princess. Maleficent cackled, and the raven on her shoulder cackled, and Ronan stared into the bird’s eyes and wished he could take up a sword and slay the villain right there. But he wasn’t powerful enough. He’d never be powerful enough.

Ronan woke to Gansey shaking him with vigor, no shortage of fear in his voice. In Ronan’s cupped hands, he felt the pounding heartbeat of a newborn raven.

**V**

Sometimes, when Ronan and Adam were sitting like this, draped over each other on the overstuffed couch of the family room at the Barns, Ronan wondered if he was still dreaming. How else could he explain this place, this time, and the beautiful boy who somehow wanted to be here with him?

Then he remembered everything was going to change in September, and it felt much more plausible.

They were watching _Beauty and the Beast_ , a movie Adam had confessed to loving obsessively as a kid. It had never been one of Ronan’s favorites, but he didn’t dislike it, either, and he was charmed by the idea of little Adam borrowing the VHS from the library over and over again and watching it in the afternoons while he did his homework and waited for his parents to get home from work. Adam wasn’t Ronan; he didn’t have a deep well of childhood memories to cling to in hard times. A happy memory for Adam Parrish was a diamond buried beneath an avalanche of jagged rocks.

“I bet you liked this because Belle’s such a nerd,” Ronan said, as Gaston threw Belle’s book in a mud puddle. He was sprawled across the couch, his head resting on Adam’s thigh, left hands tangled loosely together.

“I think maybe I just wanted to escape,” Adam replied. Ronan’s breath caught, because there it was again – the truth of the matter. Escaping Henrietta had never stopped being Adam’s goal. And in just a few short months, he was going to achieve it.

Ronan hadn’t been there when Harvard called the office of the Aglionby guidance counselor to share the news that Adam had been plucked from the waitlist and offered acceptance. He only saw Adam in the hours afterward, walking in a daze as he realized he wouldn’t be stuck at a state school after all, half-convinced that the call had been a prank because good things just didn’t happen to Adam Parrish.

Ronan had said, if not all the right things, at least some of them, congratulating Adam and telling him he’d always known it would work out. He’d reassured Adam that he did belong there, that a place like Harvard only accepted students who met their standards, even when they came from the waitlist, and fuck anyone who would try to claim otherwise. Ronan wasn’t very good at words, though, especially words that weren’t entirely honest, and true honesty would have meant admitting to the thudding stone of disappointment that had dropped into his gut and settled there the second he’d heard the news. Cambridge was so far from Henrietta.

The movie played on. Ronan’s hand didn’t leave Adam’s. Belle went to the Beast’s castle, and the Beast was awful, and then slowly but surely they grew together like the vines on the stony walls. 

“I’d dream you a library,” Ronan said, voice almost a whisper, as the Beast swept Belle across the dance floor. “All you have to do is ask.”

Adam leaned down and kissed Ronan then, in the spot between his eyebrows where Ronan’s forehead was always prepared to furrow with a scowl. “You know I’d never ask,” he said. “And anyway, this place is perfect just the way it is.” He paused, then added, “I _could_ do without the cow patties.”

Ronan let out a sharp bark of a laugh. “I’ll put that in the specs for the next cows I make.”

“Not that I don’t trust your abilities, but -- digestive health is probably important. I’ll just have to watch my step when I come home.”

_Home._

Ronan remembered sitting in this same room, so many years ago, watching _The Little Mermaid_ and resenting his father for keeping him locked away at the Barns. For Ronan, that wanderlust had faded fast. He loved the Barns more than he loved any other place on earth. But that didn’t mean he had the right to trap Adam here in his castle. Adam needed to go off and have adventures without Ronan – adventures Ronan would frankly find unutterably boring, if he was actually dragged along.

But then Adam would come home.

“I’ll lay out a carpet of palms,” Ronan said, the blasphemy sweet on his tongue. A tale as old as time, indeed.

Adam squeezed his hand. The movie played on.

Ronan had lived his father’s stories and his mother’s films. His life had been a fairy tale in all the best and worst ways.

Now it was time to write his own.

**Author's Note:**

> I was tempted to do a Pinocchio section about Matthew, but it felt a little _too_ on-the-nose, even for this fic.
> 
> I eagerly welcome speculation about Ronan's animated childhood crushes.


End file.
